Lesson: Using Natural Dyes

The world is full of color everywhere you look, sometimes from unexpected places. Many natural dyes can be created from things you may have in and around your house. The skins of an onion that you may throw away can create reddish-brown, orange, or yellow dyes. Dandelions can create vibrant to muted yellows, or if modified with iron, olive greens to dark browns. Beets can give you anything from pink to dark red. Even red cabbage brings beautiful hues of purple and blue.

In 1856, the first synthetic dye was created by an 18-year-old chemist who was trying to find a way to create artificial quinine to treat malaria. While this discovery began a sort of chain reaction—with new colors being artificially created quickly—natural dyes have been in use for at least 5000 years. These new synthetic dyes were swiftly embraced by artists around the world because they were easy to produce, required fewer materials, took less time to make (some natural dyes require tens of thousands of specimens to produce a pound of dye), and the color possibilities were endless. In the middle of the industrial revolution, it seemed as if these new chemical dyes were the sustainable wave of the future. Whether they are or not is a far more complicated question to answer.

Today, Native American peoples use both natural and synthetic dyes in their art. Using both traditional knowledge and prepared dyes that can be found at many major retailers, they create weavings that dazzle, quillwork like Monica Raphael’s that stuns, and basketry that amazes. From dyes that have been around thousands of years to those recently discovered, a rainbow of colors that range from vibrant to muted is at every artist’s fingertips.